Slim, sleek and stylish, the iPad is the ultimate multitasking device. It's a web browsing enabler, an ebook reader, an ipod, a video recorder and viewer, a diary, a notebook and many more. With so many technological affordances in one device, it is small wonder that the iPad has roused a great deal of excitement in the educational world.

Margaret Adolphus interviews Dr Anthony H. Normore, associate professor and programme development coordinator of the doctorate programme in educational leadership at the California State University. Dr Normore's research focuses on leadership development, preparation and socialization of urban school leaders in the context of ethics and social justice.

The textbook has traditionally been the purveyor of academic course content, and one of the most interesting applications of the iPad is its ability to display digital textbooks with an ease and clarity never before achieved. For the last 20 or so years, publishers have given digital a cautious nod by providing a CD stuck to the inside back cover of the textbook. But text still predominates, and a digital age demands equal use of other media, hence the birth of the born digital text.

Margaret Adolphus explores what is meant by quality and its related terms: quality assurance, quality enhancement and quality management, and looks at approaches to quality in higher education institutions. Organizations that accredit business schools and their courses: the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools in Business, the European Foundation for Management Development, and the Association of MBAs are also considered in depth.

We are living not only in a global knowledge economy, but also a global marketplace for talent, which includes universities. In 2009, an estimated three million students attended universities abroad, an increase of 57 per cent since 1999 (Knowles, 2010). In this situation, it is vital that universities educate people with a global perspective and the skill to be able to accommodate to another culture. In the second instalment of our feature on the globalization of higher education, Margaret Adolphus looks at universities which deliberately set out to be global, at critics of internationalization, and at some recommendations for good practice.

More or less all higher education institutes, particularly those in the "developed" world, are looking to create an international dimension, whether through changing their syllabus, creating exchange programmes, or opening branches overseas. What makes a university genuinely international, and the reasons for wanting to be so, are extremely complex. Here, Margaret Adolphus talks to some of leaders in the field.

Referencing is a fundamental element of academic writing, but referencing errors among students have become an issue of considerable concern. Here, Chinny Nzekwe-Excel, learning development adviser with the Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, discusses how the adoption of a consistent format for using the Harvard referencing style can encourage students to develop their referencing skills, and proposes how this can be achieved. This article is available to view without subscription.

Corporations that put man before money outperform businesses whose primary goal is to make money. In high-performing, value-based organizations the first priority is on securing the well-being of the associates. The superior performance of value-based management includes substantially less absenteeism and less turnover, more innovation, and higher profit and return on investment.

Academic ethics is an umbrella concept which encompasses many issues. On an institutional level, there is much discussion about the nature of a university, and whether it is affected by the commercial pressures to get more students (paying or paid for), whether business/university partnerships affect academic freedom, and what type of investments it is appropriate for a university to have. On an individual level, the main focus of discussion in recent years has been on academic integrity, and the need to maintain a culture of honesty in all aspects of teaching and research.

Management education should be at least partly about educating future or, in the case of executive education, current managers. In order to do this, business schools need to form close links with business, and most stress their links with the business community and claim to offer their students "real world" in addition to academic learning. This article looks at some of the ways in which business schools involve real world business in management education, and at the theoretical underpinning behind practical education.

Inquiry-, or enquiry-, based learning is an approach which assumes that learning happens most readily through discovery guided by mentoring, rather than through transmission of information. It has been fuelled by recent interest in active learning approaches, and by a concern to deepen the research input into teaching. In this guide we look first at some definitions of the term before considering where and how it is used, including its links with problem-based learning, research, group work and networked learning, and how it can best be supported by the tutor.

All over the world, women form a high proportion of students, but are under-represented in academic leadership positions. This article looks at some global trends for women in academic leadership, drawing particularly on examples from the UK, North America, Australia, South Africa and Turkey.

This article looks at a range of admissions policies from different parts of the world and finds that practice differs widely according to country and institution. Thus the community college may seek to broaden access by having two entry points at different times in the year, with a programme for late entrants, while a couple of miles away on the other side of the tracks, an elite university requires high-school grades and entrance test scores and indications of leadership qualities. However, there are common threads: a belief that the admissions process should be fair and transparent, that entrants should be judged by criteria that indicate future academic success and employability, and that strenuous efforts should be made to represent different ethnic, social and age groups. That being the case, we should have a diverse workforce capable of critical thinking and contributing to a global knowledge economy.

There is widespread global concern about students who start, but fail to complete, a degree programme. Retention has been a major issue since the 1970s, but despite a considerable amount of money spent and programmes developed, things have got little better. The problem is such that many universities have developed their own programmes aimed at retention, which this article explores.

E-learning 2.0 is a term coined for the application of Web 2.0 technologies to e-learning. It uses applications which allow the learner to create content, paralleling the changing nature of the Internet from a one-way to a two-way/many-way flow of information. This article looks at the main technologies involved and the pedagogies that are beginning to emerge to support their effective use.

This article explores some of the ways in which universities are working with business, concentrating specifically on such issues as executive development, tailored courses and knowledge transfer. The equally important issue of ensuring that management degree courses are relevant to the business world is explored in the Teaching insight: Involving business in management education.

In the 21st century, few universities see themselves as solely imparting knowledge. A key aim is that students should leave with skills employers will find attractive. In the UK particularly, employability is seen as the key to competitiveness. So, what about a university degree that does not merely foster employability skills, but also future employers? Such a place can be found in the midst of the lakes and forests of Finland – Team Academy or Tiimiakatemia, to give it its Finnish name – described by management guru and organizational theorist Peter Senge as "the future of management education".

Howard Thomas is internationally recognized as a leading expert in the field of strategic management, with over 30 books and 200 articles to his name. He is also dean of Warwick Business School (WBS), recently nominated as one of the top ten European Business Schools. He talks to Margaret Adolphus about WBS, management education, the responsibility of business schools in the current financial crisis, and his role as consulting editor of Emerald's Journal of Strategy and Management.